


painful pause

by Blepbean



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: A little bit of fluff anyways, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Heavy Angst, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22400065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blepbean/pseuds/Blepbean
Summary: When Connor went away from Jericho the next morning of their successful revolution for a break, Markus comes to him to find out what's wrong. Little did they know the next five minutes will be a painful memory that'll be full of regrets that will forever haunt them.
Relationships: Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Markus/North (Detroit: Become Human)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	painful pause

**Author's Note:**

> hiya! i just wanted to write something dbh related and i was listening to lis music (all i wanted by daughter) and thought of this! this isn't the best and i quickly edited this so soz for any mistakes.
> 
> kudos, comments and feedback is appreciated <3

Connor doesn't feel like he belongs in Jericho, mostly feeling like an outsider, an alien who's swept off to the sides. He doesn't blame them, how North gives him dirty looks from faraway or makes sure to steer well away from him, or Josh who puts up a friendly face in front of him but he knows that's brittle and fake, even Simon doesn't talk to him. Everyone doesn't talk to him, walking away as he gets close or looking at him from far away. Markus is an exception, he trusts him.

But Markus isn't enough for a reason to stay after the revolution on the first day after. It's fine, really. He'll be a nuisance in the moving of the Jerich or raiding the Cyberlife building to get more bio components and thirium for the injured, he'll get in the way of being completely useless. It's better this way, to suddenly disappear from Jericho. 

He’s just ten minutes away from the church, he can longer hear the conversations or the loud  _ thuds  _ from moving around crates and chairs. It’s just him, Detroit and the snow that coats the streets like a blanket. It’s beautiful, perhaps even mesmerising to the eyes. He sits just at a bench near _ Chicken Feed _ , the food van that Hank ate while Connor annoyed him for about ten minutes.

There's no blinking led lights in the pouring rain and the umbrellas aren't on the cheap tables anymore, it's set down, closed and leaning against the side of the food van. The window isn't open with the shady owner with a rather  _ weird  _ arrest history is gone, he can’t hear the sizzling of the oil or the smell of musty burger meat that was probably bought from the supermarket, saturated with grease and fat and oil. But Hank loved the burger, he kept on eating while ignoring Connor.

The sign with careful handwriting, written with chalk and mediocre cursive writing is gone.

What’s left is the shell, the memories, the personalities and  _ Hank _ . It’s grey and old, rotting away in the open. Connor could’ve done something, one little change in his actions could’ve stopped it from turning into an empty shell, a shadow of what it once was. There’s no more of  _ him _ , with weird patterns on his shirt and his timidness towards everyone except his Saint Bernand named Sumo.

He's gone, taken away by the cold metal against his hands and the dread and loneliness that's overshadowing him. Hank pulled the trigger in the dinner table and all Connor did is walk away into the night and the harrowing noise of a loud thud and Sumo barking is haunting him. He pulled the trigger, but Connor could've stopped it from getting into his hands.

“What are you doing here Connor?”

He turns his head, “Markus.”

Markus walks up to the bench, Connor stares at the closed  _ Chicken Feed _ while Markus stands behind him, resting his hands on top of the wet wood. He drums his fingers, a quiet noise filling the silence. 

“You can ask me to leave if you would like Connor--”

“Stay,” Connor interrupts, saying it a little too fast. He looks down on his lap, his fingers tracing the little dents of a coin that Hank gave him. He wants to say more than just one word, he wants to unravel it into river of hidden cries and a hand that says  _ Don’t leave Markus, never leave, and if you can never promise that, then perhaps just stay with me for an hour or two, stretch it into a day and leave Jericho behind just for me. Because I need the touch of a hand, Human or Android, to tell me that I did everything I could have done even though it is a lie that tastes so sour on your tongue _ .

But he doesn't, it stays in his many possibilities that his processors compute without him knowing. It's a fleeting thought, only lasting for just a second that Connor wants to last so 

much  _ longer _ .

“Do you need company,” he asks, “why didn’t you ask me then?”

“I don’t need company,” he lies, the both of them knows, “I don’t think you should stop helping  _ your  _ entire species just for me Markus, it’s rather selfish and stupid.”

“Stop with the  _ fucking  _ politeness Connor.”   
  
“I was programmed to.”

Silence.

Markus sighs, he sits beside Connor with the awkward pause in their conversation still hanging in the air. Connor knows what he’s doing, trying to get the truth out of him. Annoy him and wait for him to break and let all the secrets spill into the frozen ground right in front of him. Markus is clever, but Connor won’t let him do this. 

_ But something in his veins, thrumming in his thirium wants him to reach out and hold him. _

_ It  _

_ Hurts _

Connor looks at his hands, it’s open, waiting for  _ someone  _ to grasp it and hold it for a minute or two. It's one of Markus's tricks, he won't fall for them because  _ he  _ knows better. He's RK800, better computing speeds and power than Markus, and RK200. He can see through the little tricks, he won't let Markus,

_ But he wants to _ .

The silence that used to be peaceful is now sour, corrupted and there are a looming awkwardness and stillness that Connor doesn't like. He stops playing with the coin, putting it into the palm of his left hand and he closes his hand, tighter and tighter, letting the pressure get picked up by his systems. It's not enough to distract him, even if it's just a second, to forget about the guilt that's slowly letting him drown and the ghosts that loom in the memories that he rewatches over and over again to think about what he  _ could’ve  _ done to pull Hank out of the abyss.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Connor?”

“What do you mean?”   
  


He moves his hands closer to Markus.

“You’re far away from Jericho, you could be helping with the moving and helping the injured. But you’re not.”

“Stop pretending to read me like a book Markus.”

The hand moves closer to Markus.

“I’m not.”

The hand is close to Markus’s hand, two inches away.

"I think I'm gonna take a walk," Connor says. He stands up, and the distance grows from Markus's hand. There's a quiet pain that echoes inside of him when he stands up, with each step the dull pain inside of him goes off. It doesn't hurt, but it's going to keep going and after a while, he can't get his thoughts off it. What a horrible thing for Connor, but he's a horrible person. Letting a child and a mother die in the highway, killing the two tracis that wanted to get away and the countless people that wanted to be free and to feel  _ alive _ .

And he killed them.

Maybe the dull pain is a small price to pay, a piece of the payback that the universe is putting inside him. The guilt is a part of it too, letting him drown forever with those memories. He wants to turn back time, but that’s impossible.

A hand pulling him back stops him from his thoughts.

He looks back and Markus is looking at his eyes. His clear blue eye, bluer than the quiet oceans or the clearest skies when there are no clouds. It's so  _ beautiful, _ he thinks that if he’s not careful, then he can let himself get lost in his eye. And there’s his other eye, greener than any emeralds deep in the Earth’s crust. More vibrant than the grass in the park or the lushest rare forest that’s somehow surviving. 

And the hold on his hand, it's tight, there are a thousand words being said in the span of a  _ second _ . Markus is saying,  _ don't leave, never leave Connor. Because there's something that I'm feeling and I don't know what it is. I want to know you, peer through the stone-cold walls and the politeness and mystery that you surround yourself. Let me hold you. I can help, so don't leave, stay. And I know, and you know too. That you feel this feeling, didn't you feel the dull pain when you stood up just a moment ago? _

Connor’s eyes widen. He wants to break from the hold as Markus loses the grip on his hand. The coin drops to the ground, both of them can hear the silent  _ click  _ as it hits the wet, stone-cold hard cement. It's like Connor can breathe just for a second, through the pain and guilt and the walls that he surrounds himself he can breathe.

He looks into his eyes.

And Markus does too.

They don’t move closer to each other, they never move. They’re stuck in this sort of trance, they can’t pull away no matter how Connor tries to pull away and to run away from  _ him,  _ to leave Detroit forever and strip away everything and start from the bottom even though it’ll never get rid of the demons that’ll forever plague him. He wants to stay, with Markus.

But the moment stops, and the trance is broken because of North calling out to Markus. Connor pulls away from the hold while he looks at North at the other end of the street. He can never have this moment ever again, the emotions that feel like a quiet kiss in a heavy storm where it feels like a pause in time and he can breathe. He can never have it back, it's gone, suddenly disappearing from his hands and he watches it break right in his hands.

He takes a few steps back from Markus, both of them didn't want this to end like this. They wanted more than just a hold of each other's hand because Connor wanted to leave, but Markus made him stay. There's a pang in his chest, a pain that's so much  _ stronger  _ in his chest that is starting to hurt so much.

Both of them are still while North looks at them both. He can't handle this, it's too much for him. This moment will add to the list of things he wants to last, wanted to change and made it so much more than this. It'll be another regret to his thousands of demons that hide in his head. 

“Connor…” the way Markus looks at him is so… sad. Like he’s somehow  _ sorry _ , they broke the sweet trance what comes after is heartbreak all within a span of a minute. He can’t come back to this place ever again, Hank and Markus adding to his pain that sits in his memories.

So he runs away, ignoring the calls from Markus that feels like  _ home _ . His mind wants to go back to him, but he knows better. He’s going against himself, feeling his thirium pump break more and more with each step, a deep cut that’ll never heal that Connor will hide within his walls. 

He feels like a child running away, it feels so silly. A child running away from something that can be fixed. But he doesn’t want to fix it with the fear that'll break open and it’ll become something that’s beyond repair. Maybe it was beyond repair when he touched Markus, such an infectious feeling that keeps him from wanting  _ more. _

But wanting more, wanting  _ something  _ isn't good for him. As his tears start to sting like how he left  _ him _ . They could’ve been something, maybe they could have. But both of them know that it won’t work, like jigsaw pieces, not quite fitting perfectly the way that they wanted. Creased little corners or not snapping together correctly.

It’ll never work.

And it pains him, this moment will be a painful memory that’ll haunt him for the rest of his life. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
